Don't give up on your Garmin or other exercise smart-watch.

As many of you already know, I was griping a lot when I first fired up my Garmin Vivoactive 4. I didn't enjoy all the information that you had to enter into the companion app and a lot of this has to do with the fact that I don't enjoy putting personal information into phones or anywhere else it can go online. My frustration reached a near boiling point when I was forced to set up an account and the password was rejected 3 times because it needed to have an upper and lower case letter, at least 2 numbers, and a special character as well as be 10 digits long. I don't know where they come up with this crap, or who is attempting to hack Garmin websites, but that irritated me.

At the encouragement of my friend, I finished the setup process anyway and later got frustrated because the GPS was taking ages to activate since I live in a skyscraper-rich environment and the solution as far as the website was concerned was to "stand in direct view of the sky, preferably on a cloudless day." I found this "fix" to be completely absurd because I cannot control the weather and there is nowhere within miles of where I live where there are no tall buildings.

Thankfully, this was only something you needed to do on the first couple of times. For some reason, the GPS is more able to connect after the initial time. I do not know why this is, but it does seem to be the case. These days, whether I am walking, running, or cycling, it only takes the GPS a few moments to find me whereas on that first day and one day after, it took many minutes. Now we are fine.

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For a lot of people, these two things are going to annoy the hell out of them and I can't say which one will be more frustrating. I hate elaborate passwords because there is no way I am going to remember them. I think that on a site that doesn't do financial transactions if you want your password to be "bob" or "password" then you should be allowed to do that. What's someone going to do? Hack my account and exercise on it? It doesn't do you any good unless you are connecting with a Garmin watch anyway so I don't get the point. But later on I found out that there IS a way to link a credit card into the system in order to purchase new watch faces and other apps so I guess I understand the increased security.

I've been messing around with the various displays but I am definitely not going to pay for them. Mostly I am interested in heart rate and of course what time it is because my vision isn't sharp enough to be able to see really small things like certain other features such as linking it to your phone for Whatsapp messages. Seriously, how important do we think we are that we have to be able to get our messages while we are exercising for an hour?

Maybe later I will look at some of the other apps on there but not for now. One that piqued my interest was an app that told you how many beers you have earned with your exercise for the day. That will fit in nicely with my lifestyle.

As far as the GPS is concerned and the troubles that the watch has initially. I am living proof that it is a temporary setback as far as connection is concerned. I was getting really frustrated that one of the suggestions for people who live in urban areas was to "go on to the rooftop of your building in order to get a clear view of the sky." It was unclear in this suggestion that this was only meant to be something you would perhaps need to do ONE TIME. The way it was worded was like it was saying that I would need to do this every single time that I was going to go and do exercise, which would be an absolutely crazy thing for them to suggest. I live in a 5 story walkup brownstone building in Chicago and we are not even supposed to be on the rooftop. Combine this with the fact that the buildings around my apartment building are significantly taller than mine is and we have a situation where even on my rooftop, I am likely still going to be blocked from direct line-of-sight to the satellites anyway.

When I got frustrated and returned to the retail store to potentially bring my watch back the helpful sales rep told me that this is "one of the most common difficulties new users face" and "it really isn't that big of a deal but I understand your frustration." He didn't call me a moron but agreed with me that Garmin really should be a LOT more clear about what it is that this setup process actually entails.

He walked with me just out to the sidewalk and we stood there for a minute with my watch on my arm searching for a GPS signal. He calmly explained to me the ins and outs of GPS technology and how it needs to "pair" with the item the first time using a series of confirmations that ensures that whatever it is that is asking for a GPS triangulation signal isn't a device that is already connected, and also isn't something that isn't actually GPS necessary. He likened it to the difficulties people will often encounter when first establishing a Bluetooth connection: It can be a real pain in the ass the first time you do it but after that, the connection is almost always immediate and effortless. He explained that the next few times I use the GPS in this city that I may have to repeat this process of standing on the sidewalk and waiting a minute or two because the satellite is expensive and has a limited amount of connections that it can maintain, so they need to insure that the devices that are connecting to it, actually need the information.

This made a lot of sense to me and honestly Garmin, why isn't that on your FAQ's? That should be the very first thing on your FAQ's seeing a how there are thousands of websites filled with people that all have the same issue. It should be in Gigantic Print on the very first page.

Oh and by the way the Garmin store is located in the "Loop" area of Chicago which contains the tallest building in the entire city.

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So this idea that you need to be standing in a treeless pasture on a perfectly clear day is a bunch of nonsense. Garmin could do a lot better of explaining this and it would put a lot of people's minds at ease.

A few minutes later my GPS was connected and we talked a bit more about the various features. Honestly, this sales rep was one of the most helpful people I have encountered in a retail environment ever and I hope they are paying him well. It was due to his professionalism, patience, and great knowledge of the product that I didn't return it right then and there. I came in like a slightly belligerent customer (not on a Karen level) and he put my mind at ease right away all the while assuring me that "if you are still unhappy after I walk you through it, we will of course refund your purchase."

I guess this is the benefit of paying a bit more to buy things in a retail environment instead of buying them online.

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So the main point of all of this is that the few hurdles that new users encounter are going to be a bit frustrating and I really believe that these 2 that I just explained are probably going to be the most annoying and perhaps the only annoying aspects. If you can get past both of these I think that most folks out there are going to end up loving their watch the way that I have mine. I am already exercising a lot more frequently because of this and well, that was kind of the objective from the start.